


The Legend That Thisby Forgot

by Bsmr261



Category: The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: One Shot, a pre-scorpio races fic, how the capaill uisce came to be, sorta prosey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 04:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21313855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bsmr261/pseuds/Bsmr261
Summary: My take on the origins of the capaill uisce
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	The Legend That Thisby Forgot

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to the Scorpio Races audio book for like the 4th time and I got inspired.
> 
> Please be kind, this is my very first fic and I know its not great.

There is a small island in the middle of a lonely sea. It is flat cliffed and scraggly, and it is where the first horses climbed ashore. Many think it was on the shores of Athens, where Poseidon raised his staff and the seafoam turned into mighty hoofed beasts as a present for man, but this is not true. Those were the second. The first came to be on the beaches of that tiny little island where the sea god first tried to call the waves into flesh and form. But these first horses were not made of the foam, the barest little bits of sea and leftover scum, these first horses were dredged from the waves and the deep and the dark and the full wild viciousness of the ocean itself. These were the capaill uisce. They were not friendly, and obedient, and only the barest hint of wild. They were savage and beautiful and cruel, drinking blood and rending flesh. They did not spring up and prance on the beach like those second, lesser horses. They slithered and undulated in black lines far beneath the waves before slowly, reluctantly, leaving the water. And they did not come on a sunny day in a nicely lined herd, They came one by one, in a raging storm. The sea god left, abandoned them to try again, because these first horses were far more monstrous he intended. 

The capaill uisce still return to the island year after year, though every one but them has forgotten why. And the people of the island throw a festival every November to mark their return. They race across the beach on the backs of death itself, chanting the name of the winners. And many of the water horses are almost tame, or as tame as the sea can truly be. And they forget, because there is no one left to remember but the capaill, and the absent sea god, and a forgotten mural on a hidden cave wall, that the very first capall uisce to stride ashore, the very first water horse, was a stallion, red as blood.


End file.
